"For the New Intellectual" writing, Rand postulates the desirability of the identity and actualization of the soul through individualism versus collectivism. This has nothing to do with politics but remains personal, subjective, and as connected to a psychological process of each person. She believed human existence as a collective limited life experience because most people live through the connectivity to one another collectively. Thus, Rand states in "For the New Intellectual" the psychological processes connected to the development of the human soul connected with individualism versus that of collectivism as best fitting a laissez-faire capitalism-based society.
2. Rand argues in the laissez-faire capitalism-based society the important aspect is the "separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church" (1961). At the same time, a society with people "who is at once deeply selfish and devoid of selfhood" (Çelikkol 34). As an objectivist, Burns explains Rand's philosophical system "insisted on the primacy of reason and the existence of a knowable, objective reality" (5). According to Rand, the sort of society best fitting her philosophy as an objectivist means espousing an ethos of how no person retains the right seeking the values belonging to others through physical force. In fact, the main point she posits frames in there is never the right of any human to use any kind of physical force against others unless it is in self-defense. The validity of self-defense in Rand's view meant only against those initiating the issue. In her laissez-faire capitalist society, people only deal with one another in barter /trade with mutual benefit, consent, and value for value freely engaged. This society would have no government regulations, taxes, or any type of interference. True capitalism meant a system founded and engaged as the recognition of the rights of every individual in the society. This system included individual property rights where the only government function is the protection of this right against those who use physical force to usurp that individual property from its true owner. Through objectivism, the perfect society rejects all forms of social collectivism including socialism and fascism. In addition, the perfect society rejects the current governmental regulation of the mixed economy where the wealth becomes redistributed (Ayn Rand.org 2013).
3. Human beings' capacity for reasoning as rational being underpins their true nature. The basic means for the survival of humans lay in their ability for reasoning and from where all their knowledge derives. Knowledge is the basis of human survival and depends solely on each individual choice in the matter. ""Man's life, as required by his nature, is not the life of a mindless brute, of a looting thug or a mooching mystic, but the life of a thinking being-not
life by means of force or fraud, but life by means of achievement-not survival at any price, since there's only one price that pays for man's survival: reason" (Rand 99). Further, "That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom. This is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and character" (Ayn Rand.org 2013). In other words, the true nature of humans relies on each individual's ability for reasoning and making choices (Burns 122).
4. The connection between Rand's view of the perfect society and the nature of man as she reasons the two looks at the human capacity for making the choice to create and sustain such a society as laissez-faire capitalism. She gives humans credit for having the desire to take their reasoning ability and change society into one that promotes a market system of fairness, value for value, and free of people who do not choose to live off the goods, services, and the hard work of others. The only time the government would interface is to protect the right to property each person in this society possesses from those who would use force to try to extricate said property from its rightful owner. The connection between human nature and this society working rests on the ability of the majority of humans living in this society choosing to live together in such a manner with underpinnings this society fits human nature's choice as an adaptive evolutionary process (Lefkowitz 21).
5. Rand's view of the nature of humanity connected to her perfect laissez-faire capitalism type of society is an ideal that "could" work somewhere in the future when humanity evolves into a more enlightened species. The nature of competition makes the existence of Rand's society connected to her view of human nature less plausible because the reasonableness of humans connected to free will raises intrinsic problems because there is a deliberateness focused on neither a right nor wrong choice. "But, above all, the value experimental nature of free will means that the rightness or wrongness of free choices cannot be known with certainty in advance, that is, a priori" (Kane 209). The only certainty in free will, which does not secure or guarantee a rational choice in this process, is that some people may always see "that a plan of action or way of life is worth trying as a value experiment not if we are engaged in ultimate self-formation, that is" (Kane 209). In other words people take responsibility for free will without rationalizing is it the right choice for society as proposed by Rand's view (Kane 209; Ekstrom 4). The most pragmatic approach countering the Rand view of human nature as connecting to her perfect society is, "The issue is not one of either markets or government, but how markets and government can best work together-a kind of 'alliance capitalism''' (as quoted by Brown 323).
Works Cited
AynRand.org. The Essentials of Objectivism - Politics, Human Nature. The Ayn Rand Institute. 2013. Web. 20 August 2013
Brown, Gordon. "14: Governments and Supranational Agencies." Making Globalization Good: The Moral Challenges of Global Capitalism. Ed. John H. Dunning. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. 320-31. Book
Burns, Jennifer. Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Book
Ekstrom, Laura Waddell. Free Will: A Philosophical Study. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000. Book
Çelikkol, Ayse. Romances of Free Trade: British Literature, Laissez-Faire, and the Global Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Book.
Kane, Robert. The Significance of Free Will. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Book
Lefkowitz, Joel. Ethics and Values in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Book
Rand, Ayn. For the New Intellectual. Random House. 1961. Book.
